Whooboy. Look, Heisenberg, I been outta the game a long, long time and though I’ve worked at some hydrogrows (flood&drain SOG, bubbler cloner) and grew outdoors for approx. 8 seasons in the 90s, this is a big deal for me. For decades I’ve dreamt of having my own personal, legal, grow, and the moment has finally arrived. Besides, crystal meth is for chumps, chump!
I detailed the new equipment and the build out of the tent/system I’m about to use in a Build-Journal linked in my signature below. For purposes of reference and 3rd party problem-solving, here’s the 411 on this DWC Cherry-popping run!
Strain
The deets: Gods Gift. 90/10 Indica. Thought to be OG Kush and Gran Daddy Purp mix. THC 18-22% ish, though I’ve read up to 27%. CBD “low to moderate”. Flavour profile reported is sweet, citrus, berry mélange.
Growspace
Grow Equipment: 5x5x6.6 LumoX tent (Cdn co.) located in an old 5x10 insulated old addition to my even older house. This lung-room is sealed w/ expanding foam etc. and ventilated by 10” ceiling extraction fan with thermostat from Lowes, and is airtight when not running. Tent extraction includes 6” tent ducting, with system-sealing backdraft damper controlled by AC inf. T6 w/ advanced controller, that ends in dryer termination hardware outside. Room and tent both have filtered, ground level cool air intakes that can be sealed with timer during co2 deployment.
Enviro Controls
2x 20lb co2 tanks, regulator, Inkbird automatic controller and titan dispersal tubing. Also have a wine making station nearby that pipes it’s co2 into tent.
Heat, Rh, VWAP… while a AC Inf. will extract when extreme RH or heat present, it is for extremes and otherwise creating a steady negative pressure. Controlling finer levels in order to achieve and maintain targets is done by 2 Inkbird heat/cool and Humid/dehumidifier WIFI controllers. Inkbord Rh controls a hypersonic fogger and a sm. Dehumidifier. Inkbird temp controller controls a 9000btu AC unit in lung room and a small heat bulb used for baby chicks plugged into a power bar in the tent.
Reservoir Temps
DWC reservoirs each have enderneath them a graphite heating element (for fish/reptile tanks) that will turn on if water temp goes too low. My Pymmeter controller has two heat probes and can control two heaters independently. I do not have any cooling planned for these reservoirs outside of having insulated and covered with reflective material, using frozen pop bottles as needed and using large 27 gallon tanks to keep ph and temps as stable as possible without going rDWC.
I haven’t committed long term to DWC yet and don’t want to spend the bread on chillers and connection hardware just yet. I’m launching more plants in 4 weeks (got my legal license to grow a few dozen now) and these will be in a SIP of my own design - so I’m experimenting.
Water
We have very soft water and after recent upgrades the lowest chlorine and chloramine levels in the country. My tap water EC is 0.0 and PPMs 10, sometimes 20. Thus, I’m using my tap water unless seeds/seedlings involved.
Nutrients
For DWC base nutes I’ve got a gallon each of Flora Grow, Bloom and Micro and two dry ferts: GH Maxi Grow/Bloom and Megacrop’s new organics-free two part designed for injectors that’s a dead ringer for Jack’s. I actually couldn’t get Jacks at time of order and given current geopolitics and economics decided I needed to act fast. MC’s two part is Part A: 5-12-26 part B: 15-0-0. It has a full micronutrient package, with lots of chelates, and is different than Jack’s in that it contains a small amount of Silica and full Magnesium. It mixes really well, I’ve been using it for greenhouse plants and veggie starts and so far so good.
Additives
I hope to mostly refrain from much of this. The ‘MC 2 part gives good flexibility for throughout lifecycle. I do use 2 things that, especially if things go off the rails, might help. Humboldts Secret Golden Tree and LiquiDirt are my go-to analogues for Superthrive (analogue in usage if not content) I also have a gallon of GH’s Diamond Liquid - a humates product I plan to mix up into a foliar feed with the other two. I also have a kilo of Koolbloom dry, a liquid silica product and a mess of organic amendments not appropriate in a DWC grow.
Beneficials
I do plan on running Hydroguard through the full grow. I’m also going to be doing some RD in hopes of growing/isolating a homegrown batch of hydroguard from the original, like a sourdough starter. I think I have a good tek worked out and will update throughout this grow. I’ve grown and isolated a batch of lactus bacillus I will use and I have purchased small amounts of
NPK RAW brand “Grow” and “Bloom” bennies, both of which contain bacillus and mycelium, and a few other crawlers. I’m hopeful also that if I use the constantly cool air source for my air pump I built (undergroundand) and attach a true HEPA filter to its intake that the air pump will no longer be a vector for the sort of fungus and moulds that destroy grows. Hopefully I can get into a decent microscope someday soon too.
I’ve listed all of the above in the possibility it twigs someone onto a fix for any future quagmire I get myself into, whether by omission or commission. As it stands I’m planning to run the MC 2 part.
The Drop…
I dropped my 5 SunWest Genetics God’s Gift seeds into distilled water and giberallic (sp.) acid for 8 hrs after the lightest scuff with fine sandpaper, on April 26-27. Then sat, on whetted (with two isolated bacillus species and distilled water) paper towel between two ceramic plates for 24 hr after that, controlled to maintain 78 degrees. All 5 showed a tail within 12 hrs.
I prepared various elements for the early days by sterilizing them in my 8l pressure cooker I use for mycology. If it couldn’t be trusted to hold up to the temps I just pasteurized using lower temps and shorter duration.
I sterilized the hydroton, my air stones, tweezers, hell whatever I could. Just a habit really. I rinsed the hydroton balls really well 1st. Those bags you see are silicon, bombproof and very useful for sterilizing hydroton among other things like coco, and rooting cubes, etc. Ain’t gonna be no BS in my tent if I can help it.
Planting out
I mixed up a gallon of hydroguard, bacillus lactus, 100ppm CaliMag, and 100ppm mc 5-12-26. Pasteurized Perlite was dumped in this clean 10x20, and soaked with above. Then I constructed the 4 -5 inch net baskets from the hydroton and rooter-thingies. Using a sterile tweezer I dropped each germinated seed in the hole with loose crumb atop. The 5th seed was planted in a normal 2” pot with Perlite in place hydroton. Will prob grow this out to a mom or giveaway. Only growing out 4 seeds in This DWC.
Results
This plant in last two pics is the runt and is dealing with a very curly root and discolouration on said root and false leaves. We shall see. I’ve also got some safety equipment I don’t want to just glaze over as it’s very important so I’ll detail and discuss separately. Lastly, I recently redid my electronics mounting panel so I’ll show it off tomorrow and whatever I’ve forgotten here.
Finnish accent and youre ready to roll
